Rendering of the proposed Fillmore West Apartments. A developer seeks to build 640 to 830 apartments near the Mississippi River west of Robert Street in St. Paul’s West Side. Hunt Development plans multiple phases of construction on a mostly-vacant 13.4-acre site between Fillmore Avenue and Plato Boulevard, including 30,000 to 80,000 square feet of commercial space. (Courtesy / Fillmore Avenue Apartments LLC)

St. Paul officials already foresee the Fillmore West Apartments as a success story.

Across the Mississippi River from downtown, between 640 to 830 new housing units could soon be built. They would border a future West Side Flats Greenway, a channel that would collect rainwater and runoff and funnel it into a creek-like feature along a walking path.

Behind the scenes, though, opposition is growing.

Where city council members envision environmentally-forward designs, some neighborhood residents and housing advocates predict gentrification. They object that Weidner Apartment Homes — or Fillmore West — is moving forward without a single unit of affordable housing, despite more than $2.5 million in public investment.

A developer plans to build 640 to 830 apartments near the Mississippi River west of Robert Street in St. Paul’s West Side. Hunt Development plans multiple phases of construction on a mostly-vacant 13.4-acre site between Fillmore Avenue and Plato Boulevard, including 30,000 to 80,000 square feet of commercial space. (Courtesy of Fillmore Avenue Apartments LLC)

“Realistically, this has the potential of resulting in a segregated area of wealth, rather than an integrated community,” wrote Russ Adams, the executive director of the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, and Monica Bravo, executive director of the West Side Community Organization, in an Oct. 19 letter to city leaders. Addressed to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the members of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, the letter was also signed by Lael Robertson, the staff attorney for the Housing Justice Center.

Proposed site of the Fillmore West Apartments.

“To see this move forward without affordable units, that really limits who this development is for,” said Krysten Ryba-Tures, board president of the West Side Community Organization. “It feels really much like there is no community input.”

She noted what little communication has occurred to date has been through city planners and a local development partner, Hunt Development. “We’ve had no conversations with Weidner,” said Ryba-Tures, who learned Sept. 19 that the development would have no affordable housing and an unknown amount of commercial space.

Hunt Development could not be reached for comment.

CITY SUPPORTS MOVING FORWARD WITH PROJECT

Mollie Scozzari, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Planning and Economic Development, noted public funds from the city, the Metropolitan Council and other sources are not subsidizing the housing directly.

“A lot of it is going toward public infrastructure and prepping the site for development,” she said. “The greenway is actually going to be a neighborhood amenity, and a storm water management system. … It’s pretty innovative.”

City officials say it makes sense to move forward with a real estate project that will increase housing density on the West Side and make the river more accessible to residents. They also note the West Side is already home to a large low-income population and “organic” affordable housing, or market-rate housing that draws relatively low rents.

“We want as a goal to provide a mix of incomes and affordability options,” Scozzari said.

WEDNESDAY VOTE AHEAD OF GRANT DEADLINE

On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council will meet as the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) to approve a development agreement between the city, the HRA and Weidner, a Seattle area-based national home builder doing business with Hunt Development as Fillmore Avenue Apartments LLC.

The vote is necessary to ensure a $960,000 pollution clean-up grant for the first phase of housing off Robert Street and Plato Boulevard, as well as the future greenway and pedestrian connections along Indiana Avenue. City officials note the development would install a new street grid where little infrastructure exists.

If the agreement isn’t approved by Nov. 1, the project could lose the state Department of Employment and Economic Development grant.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN SETS AFFORDABLE LIVING GOAL

Housing advocates say the city’s Comprehensive Plan spells out 30 percent of the units in “city-assisted” housing developments should be reserved at affordable rates. The plan says the affordable units should be targeted evenly to residents earning 60, 50 and 30 percent of area median income. Within the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area, that’s an income limit of about $54,000 to $27,000 for a family of four.

Ryba-Tures worries the city is sidestepping that goal and using public money to extend the high-income housing taking root downtown.

“You have a lot of public dollars going into development, but because it’s not for brick and mortar construction, it’s not considered ‘financial assistance’ or ‘subsidy,’ which means it doesn’t trigger some affordability requirements under the city’s Comprehensive Plan,” she said.

A view looking across the river at St. Paul from the West Side Flats building, a 178-unit riverfront apartment complex at 84 S. Wabasha St. (Pioneer Press: Ben Garvin)

The West Side flats — once home to a sizable Latino and Jewish population — have a long and tortured history with city government, which forced working-class families to abandon the area after heavy flooding in the 1960s, effectively dismantling an immigrant community to make room for industry.

The Fillmore West project, along with an existing mixed-income housing building that Sherman Associates opened a few years ago and a planned second phase, could raise the number of apartments along the flats to nearly 1,000.

Near the flats, the Neighborhood Development Alliance is completing Villa Del Sol, a 40-unit affordable housing development at 88 Cesar Chavez St. Including Villa Del Sol, city planners say between 16 and 26 percent of the area units will be affordable. Scozzari said talks with Weidner are ongoing and could still boost that number higher.

Ryba-Tures hopes that’s the case. “The flats can be a place that pulls the West Side forward and reconnects it to St. Paul and the river,” she said.

Frederick Melo was once sued by a reader for $2 million but kept on writing. He came to the Pioneer Press in 2005 and brings a testy East Coast attitude to St. Paul beat reporting. He spent nearly six years covering crime in the Dakota County courts before switching focus to the St. Paul mayor's office, city council, and all things neighborhood-related, from the city's churches to its parks and light rail. A resident of Hamline-Midway, he is married to a Frogtown woman. He Tweets with manic intensity at @FrederickMelo.

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